


Just Another Day

by Culurien



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Banter, Cap’s not old because you know what fight me, Fun, M/M, Mild Angst, Morgan’s not a thing (ah sorry), Post-Endgame with a few changes, Some Descriptions of Violence, Technically major character death?, Tony’s not dead, bonding and boyfriends, but it’ll be ok in the end I promise, hijinks likely to ensue, mockeries of science, repeatedly?, some not-fun, time loops yay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 12:09:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culurien/pseuds/Culurien
Summary: a.k.a. The Five (Thousand) Times Tony Died and The One Time Stephen Helped Him Save Himself—If there’s one thing Tony never saw coming, it was getting stuck in a time loop that restarted every time a sadistic, seemingly all-powerful creature hellbent on his suffering succeeded in hunting him down and offing him. Or that he’d end up on the lam trying his best to outrun said murderous monster, with his (mostly) trusty wizard at his side.





	Just Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie, this is probably going to take a turn for fun, not heavy on the Serious™. That’s not to say it’ll devolve into crack (which I am an avid advocate of in the right time and place), but if you’re looking for a heart-wrenching 300k angst (which I am also an avid supporter of) this probably isn’t your best bet.
> 
> I’d say I know where this is going, promise y’all I have it worked out, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. I get the sense my plotline is going to be hijacked repeatedly by spur of the moment inspirations—for better or for worse lmao. All I can say is that if anyone would like to tag along on this little adventure with our favourite boys, I’d be glad for the company. ^-^

Tony snapped his fingers and a white light exploded out from the stones, blinding in its sheer intensity and power.

He’d expected to die. He’d been ready to take the brunt of the power, ready to buckle under the brute force of those stones, but it didn’t come. Not like he’d thought it would.

It hurt. It hurt a whole hell of a lot.

But the light subsided, and the armies in the sky fell apart to dust, just like he’d wanted them to. The dark, horrifying mobs of Thanos’s underlings crumbled all around the Avengers, and Thanos, the mighty behemoth himself, silently, disbelievingly, staggered, sat, and fell apart too. Dusted. Vanished.

Except Tony could still breathe. He could still see, and he could still feel.

It fucking _hurt,_ his whole body, and the pain _seared_ in his arm.

But he could breathe.

It was a miracle, by any standard. He’d been so sure of Strange’s meaning, in those last few seconds, been so sure that this really was the end of him. Had he been at peace with that? He didn’t know. He hadn’t really bothered to think about it before he’d dove for that glove, ripped those stones from Thanos and let his tech melt them into his own suit.

The sheer chaos, the magnitude of their victory, the vanquishing of their enemies, the bright frickin end-of-the-tunnel-welcome-to-heaven white light—all of it had been so distracting that not Tony, nor anyone else, had even noticed. Noticed how for one reason or another, something not quite right occurred. The power of the stones had echoed back on themselves, and instead of reaming Tony with their full force, they had soaked up some of their own damage. The stones, of course, were strong, durable little fuckers. They could take a hit. But a hit from themselves was a real blow. They fractured, just barely. Not noticeable by passing glance alone.

And no one noticed as tiny, broken, shocked little pieces—shadows, really—scattered from the stones, swirling together, desperate to grab ahold of each other, stay a part of something and not simply vanish to dust.

So no one noticed how these little bits—perverted, fractured, shattered beyond comprehension of their original purpose and meaning—also held onto what little they remembered of the events that had just passed. 

Thanos’s anger, his sadistic eagerness to tear the world around him to shreds, exact unimaginable pain and suffering on those responsible for undermining his glorious designs.

Tony’s thoughtless, honest readiness to throw himself into the wind, take himself down and sacrifice his life.

A common theme emerged for these little fragments as they struggled to take some form, any form. They clung to each other, left in the rubble after everyone was long gone, back to their families, their homes, their friends. Gone to return the otherwise untouched stones to their original places. It was a simple string of motifs: death, pain, Tony. It was all they knew, all they were imbued with, all they became, those twisted little desperate shadows.

And no one was the wiser.

It took days for them to piece together a form capable of crawling out of that battered pit. Then months to draw enough strength to finally emerge from the dark and set out to fulfill their new purpose.

Tony, pain, and death.

∞∞∞

“I’m not gonna stop you from applying somewhere else, kid. Just sayin’, MIT’s the way to go.”

“I know, but May said I should apply to a bunch of different places just in case.”

“In case what? MIT gets blown up? Don’t get used to hearing this from me, I don’t want it to go to your head—” 

“Pot, kettle,” Peter muttered under his breath. He’d really started to grow into his own since being inaugurated in not one, but two Thanos battles, the second of which had been particularly… chaotic. Still always on eager puppy mode, mind you, never seemed to just have an off-switch, but now he came with a few more snarky comments sprinkled in here and there. It was weird for Tony. Like watching the kid grow up. Well, that was actually exactly what he was doing. Still weird.

 _“Hey,_ watch it. All I’m saying is you’re a smart kid, top of your class, got a Stark Industries internship at what, _twelve?”_

“Uh, no. Fifteen. I was fifteen, Mr. Stark.”

“Same difference. Point is, you’re great and they’d have to be completely incompetent or dead not to accept you. So apply to other universities if you want, but don’t do it thinking you need a backup for MIT. Or do it because your Aunt told you too and she’s the scary boss lady.”

“Thanks, Mr. Stark.” Peter was beaming. 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all mushy on me. One time thing, kid.”

“So what’s the difference between early action and early decision and regular action and—” Right back to business, apparently. It was going to be weird when the kid was shipped off to college. Quiet.

“How the hell should I know?”

“You said you’d help?”

“I said I’d _pay_ for it. And maybe write you a letter if you ask nicely.”

“And proofread my essays?” Peter asked hopefully.

“What? Hell, no. What do you think I am, an English major?”

“Please?”

 _“No.”_ Peter watched Tony quietly, imploring him with his eyes. Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. “Ask Pepper.” 

“But, um, isn’t she, like… running your company?” 

“And?”

“Does she have time for that?”

“Are you suggesting _my_ time is less valuable, Parker?”

“No! I just, uh, well last time I saw you there was a wedding or something and it’s been a few months, well, I guess _years_ for you, and it’s kind of awkward because I don’t know what to say since you and her aren’t really, uh, anymore and—”

“Yeah, no, _full stop,_ kid. Not a conversation we’re having. Vetoed. Be a big boy, send her an email, and spare me the two hundred something words on your dreams and aspirations.”

“An email?” 

“Jesus, kid. Next topic. Weren’t we going to hash out something about residence? Because as much as I think fully immersing yourself in university _experiences_ is character building, the last thing I need is you getting hammered and then presto, you wake up and you’re a dad.”

“What? Oh my god, _no!_ That’s not going to be a problem! Why would you even say that?” And there was the sheepish little kid Tony had grown fond of.

“Weirder stuff has happened. Sex is a totally—”

Peter yelped out a horrified sound of embarrassment. “No! _Stop!_ I’m leaving!”

Tony smirked and watched the kid grab his stuff. “I’m just saying—”

“No!” Peter yelled back, retreating from the room, sending him one last scandalized look before he disappeared behind a wall.

“Not staying for dinner?” Tony called out after him.

Peter’s head poked back around the corner, his eyes conveying a strange mixture of hope and suspicion. “Pizza?” he asked cautiously, still not entirely re-entering the kitchen.

“You’re on.”

Peter grinned, hopping back into the room and slinging his stuff back onto the counter. “Ham and pineapple! I need to use the bathroom.” He scurried away.

“Pineapple pizza is for freaks and pregnant women!” Tony yelled after him.

Tony chuckled to himself, hearing the door slam shut. He took a look around the room and his amusement died out somewhat. The room was empty now, the whole apartment felt completely still and silent. 

It was a nice place, sure. Big windows. Mostly open concept. Ridiculously expensive but impressively comfortable sleek furniture. He’d moved out of HQ and bought a skyscraper just to live in the penthouse (and fill the lower floors with as many damn workshops and garages as he pleased) after Bruce had snapped everyone back and Tony had snapped all the bad guys gone. Mostly because HQ had been completely demolished, resembling a charred, post-apocalyptic pit more than it did a suitable living space. Except now it had been rebuilt for a few months, and while Steve taking up residence there with his live-in boyfriend whenever they weren’t fucking about in Wakanda was a pretty damn good reason not to move back in Tony’s humble opinion, he’d be outright lying if he didn’t admit living in the city made it a thousand times easier to keep an eye on Peter and make sure the kid didn’t get up to shit. Or that shit didn’t get up to him. Sue him, the kid died in his arms, leaving him with a truckload of residual momma-bear instincts he never knew he was capable of. Proof that Tony Stark had a heart. Of course, Tony had no problem with lying, so he had absolutely no problem not admitting the main reason behind his absconding to Midtown Manhattan to anyone but himself. He was pretty sure Pepper knew, though. She was freakishly intuitive when it came to emotions and crap.

But the trade-off for having a nice, quiet building to himself with a great vantage point for spying on trouble-seeking spiders was living on his lonesome. Which normally Tony wouldn’t mind at all—because most people were fucktards—but _maybe_ the perpetual isolation was starting to get to him. 

Sometimes he missed having Pep and Happy constantly around. Just a little. 

“Boss?” FRIDAY’s voice cut through the quiet.

Alright, not completely alone. There was the constant company of his AI brain-child. And Peter was currently like two walls away, so it was possible he was being a tad overdramatic in his musings.

“What’s up, buttercup?”

“Captain Rogers is messaging you.”

“Wonderful,” Tony sighed, looking around for his phone. Didn’t take that long, it was just over on the far end of the counter. Tony got up and walked over, reaching for it, but the retrieval, which seemed straightforward enough to him, didn’t exactly go as planned. A bolt of pain shot through his arm, causing it to tense unnaturally, his face twisting into a grimace. It passed as quickly as it came, but his rapid recovery did nothing to lift his agitation. 

He stared at his arm balefully for a moment, considering—not for the first time—the mess of scarred flesh left behind from his heroic sacrifice play. Or at least what he had interpreted from Strange’s ominous skirting around the truth and even more ominous shaking, raised single finger from across the battlefield as referring to a necessary sacrifice play on Tony’s part. Apparently it was really just more of a get-maimed play. Helen Cho had done a nice job of cleaning up a lot of the damaged flesh. Honestly, the scarring wasn’t that horrible. Noticeable, sure, but horrifying, eh, he’d seen worse.

It wasn’t so much the appearance that bothered Tony. It was the random flashes of pain that seemed to have no pindownable specific physical trigger. He’d actually been responsible for once, looked after himself for a change, genuinely put a solid effort into physio to regain a majority of his fine motor skills, and consulted with multiple doctors, Strange included. So it wasn’t for lack of trying that the arm just crapped out every now and then. But Tony was a man of science and he refused to believe there was no physical reason for the malfunction beyond his chronic affinity for bad luck. He was still trying. In fact, he was working on an implant to try and target specific nerves and monitor the electrical activity, with the goal of eventually inhibiting signals that fell outside of the normal range of a functioning limb, but it was slow work. Ground-breaking developments in a field he’d never particularly cared for were expected to require a little more focus and time on his part. But it was doable. He had no doubt.

Until then, he just had to tough it out. 

He grabbed the phone and swiped on the notification informing him he had a new message from ‘Gramps’—he’d originally meant to set the contact title as simple yet elegant ‘Fuckhead’, but in a surprising show of restraint and maturity had decided that was not in keeping with the spirit of reconciliation.

A group chat popped open on his screen. During the five years they’d been co-existing in HQ, working double-time to keep the world from collapsing in on itself in the wake of losing half its population, Tony had quickly gotten tired of playing phone tag with the Avengers and made the executive decision to get Rogers a real fucking phone and make everyone a convenient little group messaging space where they could alert each other of various going-ons and potential threats.

It was a bit different now. A few more numbers added in, namely Peter’s because he wouldn’t shut up about it after he found out and whined about being left out until Tony had caved, Strange’s after Tony had FRIDAY track down his active number and added him without any preamble, and one other particularly notable number. A few days after the Double Snap Special, Steve had asked Tony for another phone. The cursory “You know, Rogers, these things don’t grow on trees. Look after your shit,” had been levied back even though Tony knew full well the phone wasn’t meant for _Steve,_ but nonetheless Tony had slid the new phone over silently by the end of the day. When a new number inevitably popped up in the group chat, added by Gramps of course (that must’ve taken Rogers about four hours to figure out), Tony had wasted no time assigning the new number to a newly created contact shit-eatingly entitled ‘Fuckhead’. What could he say, there were limits to his maturity. 

But it wasn't just new additions that shaped the nature of their post-Thanos group chat. These days there were numbers that just didn’t really respond anymore—one because of its godly user’s ineptitude for human technology and his current location light years away from good cell service, and some others because ‘lo and behold, there were responsible parents who knew how to prioritize family amongst their number after all. And then there was the number that had been removed. Tony had taken it upon himself to execute that painful deed; ghosts already haunted everyone’s waking and dreaming steps, they didn’t have to be digital too.

_32 hostiles converging on HQ. Identity unknown and they’re coming in hot. We’ve got it covered, but if anyone wants to join in, an assist would not be unwelcome._

Leave it to Rogers to text with perfect grammar, punctuation and form even when facing oncoming enemy fire. Tony couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Change of plans, kid!” Tony yelled out, turning around with his phone in hand.

“I saw! Can I come?” Peter asked from right behind him. 

_“Shit!”_ Tony jolted, “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Oh, sorry! I thought you knew I was there.”

“Right, because I regularly ignore your presence when you’re around—you know _what,_ shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Peter was grinning, the little shit. Yeah, alright, maybe Tony wasn’t _always_ the most attentive.

“You’re not coming. Change of plans as in you’re going home. Rain check on the pizza.” The grin immediately dissolved. Tony walked past him and headed for the balcony slash convenient launch pad for iron-manning the hell out of the building.

“But I wanna help. Please? Captain Rogers said they had it covered so it can’t be that big of a deal, right? Which means this would be a great, pretty much mostly safe opportunity to just train and, I don’t know, hone my skills or something—”

“Train for what?” Tony turned around and squinted at him. “Cuz I was under the impression that you’re a full-time student now, focusing on applying to universities in a few months’ time. And _not_ swinging around New York like a monkey on acid.”

“I’m not! I promise! I’m studying a lot. Like _a lot_ a lot. I just think that it’s important to—”

“Lead a normal life? Get into a good school and cement your bright future? Study until your eyes bleed? Yes, all _fantastic_ ideas I’m going to leave you to.” He stepped out on the balcony and tapped his housing unit, commanding the bots to flow out over his body and construct his suit.

“Mr. Stark, please! I haven’t done anything fun in forever. And you guys always leave me out.” Tony turned his head even though the little voice in his mind told him to just fly away now while he still stood a chance. Peter was pulling out the puppy pout now, full on trembling bottom lip, soulful, sad eyes and a little pathetic sniff of the nose. Never mind engineering, the kid clearly had a bright future winning Oscars.

And Tony really knew better, but hell, the kid really knew exactly how to pull at his heart strings and the creeping guilt was sure to keep Tony from sleeping at night—not that he normally experienced success in that particular field—so he decided fuck it, let the kid have his way. The face plate melted away and Tony levelled him with his best _‘why the fuck I choose to put up with your shit I will never truly understand’_ glower.

“Fine. But last I checked spiders didn’t have wings, so you better get your ass over here before I change my mind and leave you behind. Last call for boarding.”

The pitiful aura immediately dissipated, like Tony knew it would, and Peter beamed at him like a kid in a candy shop. He leapt a couple steps forward, but then stopped dead in his tracks, 1000 watt smile dampening somewhat.

“I don’t have my suit.”

Tony sighed, exasperated. “Jesus, kid. Bedroom, rightmost closet, bottom drawer. There’s an extra. FRIDAY help him find it.” Peter’s face lit back up, thrilled as ever, and he all but sprinted out of the room.

“I’m not kidding about changing my mind so move your ass, Parker! _Tick tock!”_ Tony yelled into the apartment, hands settling on his hips as he waited, trying his best to look unamused. 

The entire flight over was exactly as exhausting as Tony had predicted. “Hey, Mr. Stark, do you know who’s attacking headquarters?” “Why are they doing it, Mr. Stark?” “Do you think people are still pissed off about the Thanos thing, Mr. Stark?” “They can’t be mad at you, Mr. Stark, you saved them all. That wouldn’t make sense.” “I guess people don’t always make sense though, right, Mr. Stark?” “The new headquarters is really cool by the way, Mr. Stark, did you design it? You probably did. Everything you design is so—”

Tony was four seconds away from muting the kid’s audio link, but they were getting too close to an active battle scene for comfort. “For the love of all that is holy and good on this green Earth, _enough,_ Parker. This is a silent night flight, not a goddamn talk show. Let’s ease up on the twenty questions, yeah?” 

“Sorry.” Kid didn’t sound sorry in the slightest.

Headquarters came into view and Tony wasted no time taking in the situation. It seemed a small army of self-powered humanoid drones had descended upon the building, firing suspiciously familiar looking blasters at apparently just about anything that moved or had a heat signature. In fact, their entire design was eerily similar to a design Tony never wanted to see again, sleek silver bots with narrowed, glowing blue eyes. Perverted, corrupted versions of his own suits with no room for a warm body piloting. Fitting, as they were meant to sustain themselves without human input.

“You seeing what I’m seeing, FRI? I want all of it scanned and catalogued.” Tony commanded, diving down closer to the ground to find a half-decent spot to drop Peter off. The kid jumped away, throwing himself right into the foray before Tony could even land.

“Hey! Stay in my line of sight, you hear me, Parker?”

“Yes, sir!” The sheer level of excitement ringing in the kid’s voice made Tony cringe and envy his youthful exuberance. “Keep an eye on him, FRI,” Tony directed through his private link to his AI.

“Of course, boss.”

Tony turned his attention to their attackers, blasting away an incoming bot with a well placed shot to the chest, pulverizing its internal mechanisms. Upon closer look, it seemed a bit out of sorts, and not just because of the gaping hole of charred bits and melted metal sitting in its chest. Joints had been fused together, the face plate must’ve been made up of at least three separate parts welded together. “FRIDAY, are you getting this?”

“Yes, boss. Preliminary scans are showing all the drones are comprised of multiple different segments, most sourcing from at least eight separate original models.” FRIDAY fed her findings back to him, throwing data up onto his display. 

“Huh,” Tony frowned, considering the implication of what she was telling him. Beyond the fact that each bot was clearly made up of a bunch of other bots, he had been right. The design was familiar—the scraps of Ultron’s sentries had been welded back together like an army of Franken-bots.

He made a short jaunt over to where Rogers and Rhodey had each other's backs and were tearing the attacking drones a few new ones. FRIDAY automatically connected his suit to the base’s audio stream and their earpieces.

“Took you long enough,” Rogers commented. 

“No spandex tonight?” Tony shot back.

“Didn’t have the time to change.”

“Probably because you spent all of it writing an essay. Texting’s meant to be shorthand.”

“I think Cap’s writing style is the least of our concerns now, Tony,” Rhodey interrupted. 

Steve whipped his shield, cutting a bot behind Tony clean in half as Tony returned the favour, lighting up the night with a neat repulsor shot to the head, leaving what functionally amounted to a motionless heap of metal on the ground behind Rogers. “These are the same drones we fought in—” Rhodey continued.

“Sokovia? Yeah, I noticed. I thought we made a point of cleaning that all up,” Tony agreed.

“That was your initiative,” Steve pointed out, admittedly a little less accusatorially than he might’ve a few years prior.

“Are you saying I fucked up, Rogers? Left some behind, or even better, let someone steal the leftovers we collected?” One more repulsor beam thrown nonchalantly off to the side, and when the bot proved to be particularly stubborn, another.

“Not necessarily,” Steve said.

“But that’s basically what you’re getting at,” Tony insisted.

“We all fuck up, Tones. Sometimes we use milk instead of cream, and sometimes we let someone steal away in the night with four tons of evil robot scraps,” Rhodey chimed in helpfully.

“Thanks, Rhodey. Appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“Hey, I just call it like I see it. Don’t take it personally,” Rhodey replied, shooting out the legs of a nearby bot and then proceeding to riddle its crawling form with bullets.

“I’m not sure how else someone would’ve gotten their hands on this kind of tech. And this amount of it.” Steve almost sounded sorry for blaming Tony, which Tony thought was hilarious considering Blaming Tony used to be the guy’s favourite hobby, so he took pity on him. Rogers was trying. They were both trying—reconciliation, and all that.

“You think someone’s behind this? Anyone come to mind?” Tony changed tracks.

Steve answered pretty easily. “Not sure yet. Someone’s taken the time to piece them together. It’s been years since Sokovia. Someone must’ve been holding onto these things for a while.” 

“I’ll have FRIDAY backdate all the pieces when we’re done here, see if she can find matches from the scrap we catalogued back then.” Tony took a moment to look out and find Peter, locating the kid just in time to witness him web one flying bot and smash it into another that had been about to laser Peter square in the face, taking the two drones out in one fell swing.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter yelled out over the intercom. “Did you see that?! That was awesome!”

“Nice form, Queens. Watch your six and keep your timing tighter,” Steve offered before Tony could get a word out edgewise, taking Tony by surprise. 

Tony turned to look at Steve incredulously, which of course Steve couldn’t see because his face plate was up, but the sentiment stood nonetheless. “I’m missing something. What’s going on here,” Tony asked, pointing between Rogers’ and Peter’s general directions.

Steve frowned at him, confusion creeping into his features. 

“I’m gonna let you two sort this one out.” Rhodey took off, shooting down another drone mid-flight as he went. 

“Sort out? What’s to sort out? _Rogers?”_ Tony took a step toward Steve.

“We’ve been working on his hand-to-hand. Peter told me he ran it by you… which now seems like something I should’ve followed up on.”

 _“Parker!”_ Tony yelled out over the intercom.

“You wouldn’t let me practice! I’m sorry, Mr. Stark! I didn’t want to fall behind,” Peter explained, bashful, but clearly not bashful enough to _not_ clamber up a bot’s back and rip off its head as he threw himself into a backflip and slung some webbing to pull himself into a full-body crash with another drone, sending it crashing to the ground where Peter webbed it down and efficiently tore out a chunk of its primary wiring. Tony had to admit, the kid had moves.

“And you just assumed—” Tony turned back to Steve, starting to level another irate accusation at him.

“He assured me you said it was fine,” Steve interrupted, holding his hands up in defence.

“I said _what_ now?” There was a dangerous edge to Tony’s voice that made Peter cringe.

“I felt bad lying!” Peter’s voice insisted in Tony’s ear.

“Oh, you _felt bad._ That makes everything okay.”

“I’m sorry!”

“You bet your ass you’re sorry, Parker. Prepare yourself for a long-winded lecture when we wrap this up. And I’m _not_ above grounding you.”

“He’s a good kid,” Steve started, attempting to come to Peter’s aid.

“Hey, you were illicitly training him in fisticuffs. Don’t think I’m not pissed at you too. If you were eighty years younger, you’d be going to bed without dinner,” Tony cut in.

“If you’re done parenting for the moment, you might wanna check out the south wall, Tones. I’d say another twenty are headed our way. Secondary assault? Whoever the hell pieced these things together had a whole lot of time,” Rhodey piped up over the intercom.

“And pieces,” Tony muttered, more to himself. This was really starting to piss him off. How the hell had so much of the wreck of Ultron’s minions gone missing? And ended up in the hands of some lunatic who clearly had it out for the Avengers? He be damned if he didn’t find out.

“We’ll pick this up after, kid. Don’t think I’m done with you.”

“Sorry,” Peter tried again, sheepishly.

“Save it. You can finish cleaning up here.”

“I’ll stay,” Steve offered. 

“If I come back and find you two sparring, I swear, I’m going to have an aneurysm.” Tony took off and flew over to Rhodey, catching the incoming party on his viewscreen as he went. What fun. Twenty-four more little red dots for them to deal with. Rhodey came into view and Tony noticed another dude standing next to him— _ah._ He was wondering where Fuckhead was. There were a few litterings of drone pieces scattered around the area already, not accounted for by any of the bots currently flying in. Seems Barnes had been busy.

Tony landed a fair distance away from the other two, allowing them all to cover more ground.

“Think these guys all missed their alarms, or just got jealous and wanted to join the party?” Tony wondered aloud. 

“Either way, let’s show them a good time,” Rhodey answered, unloading a true fuck-ton of bullets upon the incoming drones. 

“That’s my man,” Tony responded in kind, bringing up an arm to take aim as a drone got right up close and personal with him—except, he really should’ve brought up both arms because the right one gave out on him, freezing up as that same, inexplicable pain shot up to his shoulder. And honestly, he probably could’ve lined up the shot earlier and not waited until the last second. Showing off a little? Maybe. His nanobots compensated and brought his malfunctioning arm up to fire nonetheless—as he’d programmed them to in case of this exact event—but the half-second he lost in the process lent the bot enough time to veer out of the way, avoiding his repulsor beam and smashing right into him, his other hand coming up too late.

Tony and the drone went flying, knocking them into—scratch that, _through_ the wall just a few feet behind him.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Tony exclaimed, landing on his back, arm coming up (smooth sailing this time _of course)_ to pulverize the drone before its arms could reconstruct to a blasters, except he never got to get a shot off before sizzling bright orange ropes abruptly wrapped themselves around the bots neck and abdomen, ripping the thing apart.

“Goddamnit, Strange. You need to stop with this guardian angel shit. It’s getting tired. I had a handle on the situation.” Tony’s arm sank back down and he eyed the sorcerer that was revealed as the drone fell to pieces on the ground.

“I’m sure. Trying out a new fighting style?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I call it _Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls.”_ Tony brought up a knee for emphasis, mimicking the pose, and then kicked the rubble off of himself, pushing himself back up to his feet with ease.

“Racy.”

“I’m thinking it’ll be my new signature move.” That freakish piece of outerwear reached out before Tony could stop it and brushed away a stray bit of dust from his shoulder.

“Hey, personal space, dude.” He pushed the cloak aside, leveling it with a glare. “Or dudette? Does that thing even have a gender?”

“I never thought to look.”

Tony pulled a face, which _again,_ couldn’t be seen due to his face plate.

“All clear on our side. Kid and I are joining you guys,” Steve’s voice cut in, informing everyone connected to the base’s audio link.

“Much as I’d like to stay and chat about the anatomy of your anthropomorphic cape, I left a child amongst the killer robots.” Tony took off without another word, flying past Strange back out into the open and soaring up to get an aerial view. Easiest way to locate misplaced arachnids. 

He found Peter pretty quickly and dropped down near him, blasting away a drone over Peter’s shoulder as he landed. Strange set down next to Tony, cape a-fluttering.

“Doctor Strange!” Peter exclaimed, twisting mid-swing and landing in front of them to say hi, apparently having bounced right back to his chipper mood. 

“Peter,” Strange greeted.

“Oh wait, _whoa,_ this is so cool! We’re a team again!” Tony didn’t need to see Peter’s face to know his eyes were glowing with barely contained glee.

“Yeah, because that went _oh_ so well last time,” Tony shot back sarcastically. He shot down any drones that got too close, flying around abruptly to get the upper hand. Tony let Peter web and smash down a couple for himself. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were stalking me,” Tony directed at Stephen, who was following Tony’s erratic flight pattern with relative ease.

“I was in the area.” Strange had his shields out, alternating between those to block attacks and his magic ropes to sling about and tear apart assailing bots.

“This secluded few hours away from any sign of civilization area? What a fascinating life you must lead.”

“It was a slow day. The text was a welcome distraction.”

“Must’ve been a slow couple of _months_. You’ve been clocking in a perfect attendance record, doc. You know, participation isn’t mandatory every single time the bat signal is lit. We’ll still let you be a part of the club.”

“Could say the same of you.” 

Tony decided to ignore that comment, having no real rebuttal. “No one’s feelings will be hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Terrified, actually. How insightful of you.”

“You know me, Mr. Sensitive. I pick up on these sorts of things.” 

The last drone was dismantled courtesy of Peter (and yes, Tony’s heart sang with parental pride), the six of them having made pretty quick work of the mechanized attackers.

Stephen landed back on the ground and this time it was Tony following him.

“I don’t think I’m needed here anymore,” Strange declared, more for Tony’s ears than anything, and opened himself up one of his science-mocking, spacetime fabric tearing portals.

Tony deconstructed his face plate. “Ok, first off, _needed_ is a strong word, and— _Strange, I’m not done with you!”_ But the wizard was already gone, his shining portal snapping closed behind him. Tony growled irately.

“I want all these parts sent to the sixth, no, better make it the six _teenth_ floor, FRIDAY. Every last bit of scrap. I don’t want a single screw left behind, hear me?”

“You got it, boss. Authorization to dispatch a small team of suits for clean-up and cataloguing?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Tony flew the small jaunt over to where the other four members of their emergency night-shift had coalesced.

“Stark,” Bucky greeted.

“Barnes,” Tony replied.

“You... fight well.”

“Yup,” Tony agreed evenly. One day, he told himself, he’d stop being a prick and lighten up, take the olive branches that were offered, but today was not that day.

“I’m taking all this shit with me.” Tony motioned a hand vaguely at the mess surrounding them, bolting from that session of stilted pleasantries as fast as he could. “Well, technically _I’m_ not taking it with me, but it’s going with me. FRIDAY’s handling the details. With other suits. So. Yeah. That’s happening. Beware. Don’t be square,” He trailed off, not entirely sure where he’d meant to be going with that sentence. “I’ll send over anything of interest. Info-wise.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Steve agreed. There wasn’t really much else to be said, so the five of them just stood there like a bunch of jackasses, standing in a misshapen little circle of tense undercurrents, strained silence, and post-battle restlessness. 

“Where’s Porthos?” Tony tried.

“Porthos?” Steve sent him a questioning look.

“You’re one musketeer short,” Tony elaborated.

“Oh. Sam stayed behind. Shuri has him testing out new wings.”

“Ah. Smart girl, that one. A real go-getter.”

“Yeah, she’s great,” Steve agreed.

Silence.

“Right, well, I think we’re going to head in. Good night, Tony. Peter.” Steve broke off from the group, nodding politely and motioning for Barnes to follow suit.

“Sweet dreams,” Tony called out after them, smiling. It was kind of a pathetic smile, fake as hell and probably looked a lot more like he was grimacing. 

Tony watched them walk away, the silence between the remaining three awkward and palpable until Rhodey decided to break it. “You gonna fix that you-shaped hole in the wall?”

“No, that’s actually—I just decided we needed another door. Figured I might as well lay out the groundwork while I was here.” 

“Oh, so that was deliberate then?” 

“Of course. What else would it be.” 

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure I spotted a certain _stranger_ pulling you from the rubble and saving your ass from the big, bad robot. Seems less deliberate and more whoops, there goes Tony, sailing through a wall. Again.” 

Tony narrowed his eyes. “No idea what you’re referring to, Rhodey-bear. Maybe ease back on the sauce a bit there. Not a lawyer, obviously, but I think this would probably count as drinking and driving.” He motioned generally at Rhodey’s suit.

Rhodey, used to Tony’s particular style of deflection, just kept grinning and prodded on. “What is this, the fifth time? Seems like your knight in shining armour, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Does that make Mr. Stark the damsel in distress?” Peter chimed in, jumping at the chance to help clear away the uncomfortable stillness that hung in the air.

“I think he qualifies,” Rhodey agreed. 

The little traitor. “Finally showing your true colours, huh? I’m gonna remember that, kid,” Tony promised darkly. Clearly his tone didn’t hit the desired level of threatening, because Peter carried on smiling just as cheekily, if not more so. Brat. “Rhodey, will you take him home.” 

“What about pizza?” Peter reminded Tony hopefully.

“No such luck, kid. Another time.”

“But, you—”

“You’ve got school tomorrow,” Tony interrupted firmly.

“It’s Saturday tomorrow,” Peter pointed out.

Tony had nothing to say to that. “Rhodey, will you please?”

“Yeah, fine.” Rhodey motioned Peter towards the building with his head.

“Mr. Stark—” 

“I’ve got an errand to run, kid. Unless you want to watch me yell at a wizard—rhetorical question—you’re going home.”

“Come on, Peter. Tony wants some alone time with the good doctor.”

“Funny. Don’t think this means I’ve forgotten about the secret fight club, Parker. We’re still going to have a word about that.”

Peter’s face fell sullen and Tony felt the tiniest bit responsible, which in turn made him feel like the biggest ass. 

“But you did… alright today, kid.” Tony was about to go on to say ‘keep up the good work’ or some other hallmark shit, but Peter was already back to grinning like an idiot, so he let it be.

“Oh. Uh, thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give Rhodey plenty of trouble on the way home, you have my blessing.”

“Hey—” But Tony didn’t hear the rest of Rhodey’s protest because he was already up in the sky, blasting off towards Bleaker street. 

∞∞∞

The front door opened for him with a single push, catching Tony by surprise. He was ready to go full _fus ro dah_ on the damn thing if need be, but apparently he could keep the dragon-speak tucked away for the time being. 

The main hall was empty. Silent. Tony stopped for a moment, peering around. Once he confirmed there were no wizards hidden in dark corners, waiting to ambush him, he had his suit retreat back into its humble abode sitting on his chest. 

“Strange?” He called out. No answer. Fine, Tony would go looking for him. He had all night.

He’d been in Strange’s study once before. He figured that was a good a place as any to start. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy to find as he thought it would be. And Tony wasn’t ashamed to admit, the Sanctum with its silent, dark halls was an eerie place to wander around. Especially at night. Alone. Or was he? There was something sinister about the atmosphere of the place, like he was constantly being watched. Gave him the heebie-jeebies.

Eventually, he found the study. How? He wasn’t sure. Could he trace his steps back to the front door? Probably not. He’d cross that bridge when he got there.

Tony walked into Strange’s study, about to disabuse the wizard of the notion that he needed to appear in the middle of battles and _rescue_ Tony. Tony was a big boy. He’d been handling himself for years, hell, _decades_ before Strange decided to boop into his life, and he sure as hell didn’t need a babysitter now. He could handle his shit just fine on his own, thank you very much. Mostly fine. Technically fine. He was still alive, _that_ was what counted, right? 

Tony stopped short, his mouth open and ready to spit fire as he barged into the room, but he never got a word out. The scathing diatribe he’d prepared died on his tongue and his eyes narrowed in confusion, his face twisting into the perfect expression of _‘what the fuck?’_ Honestly, at this point it shouldn’t have phased him. 

Strange wasn’t sitting on his little antique couch thing, and he wasn’t at his desk either. He was just... floating in the air, full-on lotus position, eyes closed. Like a fucking yoga Jedi. 

“If you think _this,”_ Tony waved a hand up and down over Strange’s floating form, “is going to save you from getting chewed out, you’ve got another thing coming, doc.”

Strange didn’t respond.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.”

No change. He just hovered there, ignoring Tony. Tony didn’t like being ignored.

Tony stepped forwards, and when he wasn’t immediately incinerated in some sort of protective wizard circle, he took another step, which turned into a cascade of steps that really fell more under the category of storming than they did walking. Ever the child, his first mode of action upon reaching Strange was to reach up, preparing to flick him square on the forehead. 

“Don’t,” snapped a stern voice behind Tony before his fingers even got close to Strange—Tony _knew_ that voice. He whipped around, hand immediately dropping to his side, because _there’s no way in hell,_ but what do you know, there was Strange himself, standing behind Tony, arms crossed, as _a literal force ghost,_ all see-through and vaguely blue tinged. Though admittedly the colouring might have been due to that navy robe he insisted on always wearing. 

Tony had seen some strange shit in his life, and Tony had seen Strange do some strange shit. This was a new one for him.

“The glow of afterlife suits you.”

Strange flew next to Tony, ignoring his comment in favour of stopping to level a mildly irritated glower at his cloak and scold, “I can’t believe you let him get that close.” The cloak just shrugged, which _still_ made Tony’s head swim, because articles of clothing should not be capable of expressing human emotions. Come to think of it, Tony was actually surprised he hadn’t gotten smacked down by the fluttering thing way before Strange had to menacingly manifest behind Tony. 

“We’re overdue for a chat, you and me. A real heart-to-heart,” Tony started, trying to focus Strange.

“Can’t wait.” Strange didn’t bother turning around.

“No, I’m serious.” 

Strange’s ghost rushed into his body then, his eyes—his real eyes—snapping open, which most certainly did _not_ send Tony jumping back a few paces. He… _calmly_ and _elegantly_ moved out of Strange’s personal space.

“That was weird. I didn’t need to see that.”

“Would you prefer I remained in astral form?” Stephen came back to standing on the ground with a graceful ease.

Tony pulled a face at that. _“Astral_ —you’ve got to be kidding me, what other kind of spiritual crap are you trying to sell here? Don’t tell me, crystals really do hold the power to unlocking the soul.” 

“I can think of one that does. _Did_ , _”_ Strange amended.

The glowing orange stone immediately came to mind and Tony conceded the point. “Touché. But that’s besides the point. The point, I might add, that I had to trek all the way over to your little house of horrors to make because someone decided they were too cool to hear the end of my sentence.”

“I apologize, I had better things to do than to listen to you complain about being helped.”

“And yet here we are. Would’ve been much easier to rip off the bandaid and get it over with. I’m going to stretch this out now.”

“What makes you think I’ll stay and listen? Or better yet, what makes you think I’ll let _you_ stay?” The doors to the study swung open on cue and Strange’s arms crossed, his arched brow punctuating his queries. 

Tony wasn’t phased. “I can out-stubborn you.” 

“I sincerely doubt that.”

Tony shrugged. “I’ll camp outside your door. I’ll get a megaphone.” 

Something almost akin to nostalgia flared across Stephen’s eyes and he offered Tony a small, amused grin. “Say your piece, Stark.”

“Back to last names are we?” He began walking around the room, entirely restless and attempting to pass it off as curiosity for his surroundings. Strange had so much junk in the room. Odd little trinkets, a crap-ton of dusty old tomes— _correction_ —old tomes with a distinct _lack_ of dust. Tony squinted to get a better look and moved towards them. Someone was an avid reader.

“Well, you seem to be fond of mine. Despite the fact that I have a perfectly good first name you’re welcome to use, you know.”

“I like mine, thanks though. We’d be three Steves too many.”

“Obviously I wasn’t suggesting you should call _yourself_ Stephen—” The exasperation had too much of an undertone of amusement to be genuine annoyance. Stephen was watching him meander, probably keeping a close eye so that Tony didn’t touch, or heaven forbid, _borrow_ any of the man’s prized possessions. 

“Right, well, uh, you hear me out and I’ll consider _cozying_ up with first names.” Tony’s finger came up to run against the spine of one of the books as he threw a smirk over his shoulder at Stephen.

“When you put it that way, perhaps it’s best I don’t listen.” Stephen was smirking himself, the atmosphere still light and easy.

“Ouch. You’re right, though. I’d be too much for you to handle.”

“You _are_ too much for me to handle.” That made Tony stop, reminding him of the reason he was invading the wizard’s home office. His fingers dropped from the books, playfulness dropping from his expression as his arms came up to cross over his chest, mimicking Strange’s own stance.

“Yeah, about that. Serious mode now, you need to _stop_. I don’t need to be gallantly swept off my feet every time I get a boo-boo. Getting kicked around is the name of the game, doc. Don’t sign up to be a superhero if you can’t handle the bumps and bruises.”

“It’s one thing to handle them, and it’s another to constantly invite them your way.”

“Are you suggesting I’m needlessly reckless?”

“I think you’ve been acting out lately. Perhaps you’re… overcompensating.” The word wasn’t spoken hesitantly or even cautiously, but perhaps gently fit the bill. And if that didn’t have Tony’s jaw clenching. 

“Overcompensating. And pray tell, what exactly is it that you think I’m overcompensating for? Because if you’re suggesting that _this_ —” Tony pulled up his sleeve with a rough yank to reveal his scarred arm “—is in any way affecting my performance, that’d be _real_ fucking rich, coming from you of all people, shaky.” The insult tumbled from his mouth and his hands gestured of their own will towards Stephen’s before his brain could catch up; he was left watching that car crash, cringing internally and regretting the ad hominem attack the moment he heard his own words. It was a cheap shot, and an unnecessarily cruel one at that.

All the good humour in the room was immediately sucked out, leaving behind a silent, still vacuum, strikingly similar to the vast, cold expanse of space. Strange’s eyes didn’t quite narrow, but any warmth he’d had seeped from his face and his crossed arms suddenly seemed a lot more severe than relaxed. He said nothing, opting to level Tony with an icy stare instead. 

Tony grimaced. “Okay, maybe that was slightly uncalled for.” 

“You don’t get to project your vexation with life onto me. I’m not your punching bag.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m a dick. Sorry.”

“Massive dick.”

“The biggest.” Tony winked. He half expected to be banished from the Sanctum right there and then, Strange making good on his earlier suggestion, but to Tony’s relief Stephen rolled his eyes, his arms were still crossed but loosened, and the mood lightened somewhat. 

“But I was one hundred percent not kidding when I said you had to lay off the guardian angel bullshit. It’s not cute anymore. And it’s bad for the brand.”

Stephen sighed. “Not everything is about you, Tony.”

“Ok, but this is literally _entirely_ about me. Specifically, your obsession with coming to _my_ rescue. Is there something you’d like to tell me? Because I think we’re well past the point of _out with it already_.”

Strange’s silence spoke volumes.

“You _are_ hiding something.” An accusatory finger came up to point at Stephen. The seriousness of the moment was ruined, however, as that infernal cloak Strange insisted on always draping over his shoulders decided that was the right time to reach a corner out and _wave_ at Tony, breaking his attention for a moment so he could send it a glare in reply.

“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“Don’t get all vague on me now. Thanos is done with, the yellow brick road has been followed to the end. We’re done with the moratorium on you sharing details now, Glinda.”

Again, Strange said nothing.

“Aren’t we?” Tony prodded further, concern rising.

When Stephen didn’t answer quite as promptly as Tony would have liked, he pushed more. “Hey, Strange. This isn’t funny. We’re done with all that one path crap? Right? Because I was pretty sure I was sealing the deal when I snatched those stones and gave that bloated purple behemoth a taste of his own medicine.”

“I don’t think this is a conversation you’d like very much, Tony.”

“That seems to be a common trend in my life. Hit me.”

“No.”

“I didn’t mean literally hit me.”

“I know you didn’t—” 

“Ok, _enough,_ Stephen. You’re not the only one capable of looking out for this planet. That’s kind of in my job description too, if you haven’t noticed. Sharing is caring, so stop _hoarding_ all the pertinent information. Out with it.” 

“You…” Stephen trailed off, but not for lack of words. There were plenty of words, of that Tony was sure, Strange was just biting them back. And Tony really didn’t like the way Strange was looking at him. 

“I what?” 

Silence.

“Oh come on, for fuck’s sake stop being a coward and face the fucking music, Strange—”

“You were supposed to die.”

Tony blinked. 

Oh.

Well. 

Uh... Strange really didn’t pull his punches, did he? Tony was pretty sure his ears weren’t supposed to be rushing like that. Neat. 

“This was a mistake.” Stephen was shaking his head, breaking from his spot in the room and moving to lean forward on his desk, both hands flat against its surface.

“What? Me living, or you spilling?” Tony couldn’t help wondering. And then spitting those wonderings out humourlessly. 

Stephen frowned and Tony amended before he could reply.

“Sorry, I just—you said one path.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re dead certain of that? Swear on your mother sure?”

Strange sighed tiredly and pushed himself off the desk, turning back to look Tony in the eye before he answered. “Yes.”

“So we fucked up.”

“Not necessarily.” Why did everyone insist on saying that when they really meant: _Why, yes indeed, Tony._

 _“Yes_ necessarily. There was one path to victory, we didn’t follow it. Ipso facto: we fucked up.”

“I only looked through fourteen million—”

_“Only?”_

“You of all people can appreciate how that’s an infinitely small fraction of infinite possibilities.” 

“Kind of changing your tune here, doc. You were very clear, hand over the time stone to the space tyrant clear. There was _one_ path.”

“Something went awry. I’ve been—”

“Keeping close tabs on _me_. The thing that went awry,” Tony offered as clarification. Again, Strange’s lack of response spoke clearly in his stead. The man’s non-answers were really starting to get under Tony’s skin. “So none of this had anything to do with helping out your fellow man. You were just making sure our existence didn’t start crumbling around me. Oh my god, I’m the string.” Tony broke off, distracted by a tangent thought. 

“The string?” Stephen didn’t follow.

“I’m the string in the sweater. The string you shouldn’t pull, but you inevitably do and then the whole sweater comes apart—” 

“Tony, slow down.”

“Coming to terms with my mortality here, Strange. Cut me some slack.”

“That’s something we all have to do sooner or later.” It was a weak response, and by the looks of him, Stephen knew that too.

“Sure, but you’re not _overdue_. _Expired_. Like _yogurt.”_

Silence. Again.

“Fuck,” Tony muttered softly. He was really getting sick of the universe’s relentless mission to pile as much shit upon him as was cosmically possible. Just when he thought things would go back to a semblance of normal, maybe even dare he hope _better_ than normal, another curveball had to be thrown his way. He’d fought tooth and fucking nail, shed blood, sweat and tears, thrown himself into the fire just to save everyone else. This was supposed to be it. The miracle of his continued existence was supposed to be a break, something _good,_ for once. Alas, no rest for the wicked.

“If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t exclusively concerned with the stability of our timeline. I was genuinely concerned you were going to get yourself killed.”

“So you were clearing your conscience then.” Tony was still staring off at some distant point, stuck in his thoughts.

“What?”

He blinked and turned his attention back to Strange, elaborating. “No, you felt bad, because you sent me out to die—no hard feelings really, fate of the universe and all, I get it—and now you’re trying to make amends. Seek out cosmic absolution. Think if you save me enough times it’ll make up for it?”

“Do you think it was easy, condemning you to die? Waiting for the moment, knowing exactly what was to come?”

“You sure made it look like a breeze.”

“Is that what you’re upset about? Do you think I didn’t look for another way? That I damn near burnt myself out searching through fourteen million different possible futures for the _fun_ of it?”

“I don’t know, doc. You tell me. Apparently I don’t know a lot of things.”

Strange’s smile was brittle as he shook his head, refusing to say another word and heading to simply leave the room instead.

“I’m sorry, are we—what, is this conversation just finished?” Tony called after him.

He kept walking towards the door. “Didn’t receive an invite to your pity party for one.”

“What _the_ _fuck’s_ that supposed to mean?”

Strange stopped and turned around. There was a level of frustration in his eyes, not quite anger. “It means come find me when you’ve calmed down and are willing to talk this through with a level head.” 

“Calmed down? _Fuck you,_ Strange.” If Tony were in any mood to accommodate others, he would’ve reined himself in after recognizing the exhaustion apparent in Strange’s features—but fuck Strange, he didn’t get a _monopoly_ on being tired. 

“Really proving my point here, Tony.”

“Yeah, and you know what? You don’t get to storm out of the room, asshole. It’s _my_ fucking turn.” Tony growled, whipping past Strange and barging through the doors. He could hear the cloak rustle behind him, the doors slamming shut in his wake.

The Sanctum’s dark halls were now _conveniently_ lit. Bastard.

∞∞∞ 

The first thing he did upon returning home was make a beeline for the sixteenth floor. He needed to work, itching to get his hands on something and just lose himself in _doing_ something. Sitting idly by had never been his forte.

Needless to say, Tony didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. And he might’ve sent the contents of one or four benchtops sailing to the floor in a fit of blood-boiling, head-pounding, chest-tightening, expletive-shouting rage. Who could blame him? 

But he could only indulge his penchant for tantrums for so long. There was work to be done.

The most obvious line of attack was the coding. Someone would’ve had to manipulate it for the drones to target HQ. Clearly they weren’t after individual Avengers specifically, because no parade of trigger-happy Franken-bots had shown up at his doorstep. But he had to wait for FRIDAY to sift through and test all the leftover, salvageable processing cores before he could even get his hands on any murderous bit of coding.

So for the time being he buried himself in keeping up with FRIDAY’s scrap metal cataloguing, which lead him down a whole nother rabbit hole as she informed him that beyond the core mechanisms, weapons systems and some of the scraped drone skulls, a decent chunk of the metal hadn’t originated from the Ultron Offensive. 

“Seriously? Huh. I want an alloy composition break down of those supplemented parts. How much do you wanna bet it cost them an arm and a leg? You don’t go to the trouble of stealing this caliber of tech and then cheap out on the repair job. And run personnel files too. I want to see who came in contact with the parts we retrieved during Damage Control years ago.” 

“On it, boss.”

“That’s my girl.”

It was later when he walked over and picked up a welded faceplate that another flash of inspiration struck him. He bit his lip as he narrowed his eyes at what was in his opinion, a less-than perfect weld and therefore most likely done by human hand. Tony dropped the plate and looked around the room. There was a lot of metal in this room, a lot of welded joints. That was a lot of work, Tony would know. But that also meant that maybe, just maybe, it was a large enough sample for him to figure out exactly how many people had lent a hand in reassembling the busted pieces of Ultron’s sentries.

“Run diagnostics on all these joints.” Tony cast a hand out, gesturing to all the collected parts. “All of it. Quality of work, recurring mistakes, anything that stands out. Let’s see if we can’t distinguish how many of the king’s horses and the king’s men played a part in putting these bots back together again.”

“That’ll take some time, but I’ll get that done for you as soon as possible. I’ve finished analyzing the compositions of the substituted segments. Where would you like the results?”

“Just throw them up in front of me.” Tony grinned at the flow of information that followed. “What did I tell you, FRI. That’s some expensive, high-grade metal. Oh boy.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Let’s find out where this shit was made. Maybe we can source a distributor, snatch a list of their buyers.”

And thus he began chasing down three different lines of interest, at least one of which he fully expected to prove to be a wild goose chase. But it kept him occupied, so what the fuck did he care.

Even so, his mind in all its traitorous glory insisted on constantly reminding him that he’d been upgraded from impending doom to outstanding doom and the universe, in all of her cold-hearted bitchiness, was likely intending to collect. If his luck held as it tended to—that is, _poorly_ —it’d be sooner rather than later. Tony loved being an exception to all the rules, loved kicking ass even when insurmountable odds were stacked against him, but this snafu he’d found himself in really took the cake. Took it and hightailed out the goddamn door without looking back.

He was exhausted.

Tired. Worn-out. Constantly on edge. Anxious as hell. Fucking pissed off. Ready to drop back into the mind-numbing bliss that booze and other questionably legal substances offered to him, and to be honest, probably would’ve given into that particular siren song if it had not been for Peter.

Because he had responsibilities now. Specifically, one ridiculous, irritating, constant source of headaches, please god make him shut up for just five minutes, bright, intolerably sweet, whiz-kid of a responsibility.

So to hell with fate, he wasn’t going to play her game or by her rules. He never had, and he wasn’t going to start now, just because a wizard saw something inauspicious in his tarot cards. To hell with Stephen, too.

And yet there was something to be said about shooting the messenger. Universally agreed to be a big no-no. Or at least, terranly agreed. Tony wasn’t sure what extraterrestrial policies towards messengers and hurling deadly projectiles at them were like. He imagined there was at least one planet out there that considered it a national sport.

So maybe Stephen was just the bearer of bad news and not personally responsible for it, but Tony still wanted to deck him. For not telling him earlier. For telling him at all. Tony wasn’t sure yet which side of that fence he fell on. And yeah, maybe he was just a little bitter that the guy had foreseen Tony’s death and not done anything about it, just stuck his stupid finger out from across the battlefield, _‘Remember to die, Tony’—_ might as well have shown him the other finger, the fucking pompous stupid arrogant prick. 

Not that Tony would’ve done anything differently in his place. Except maybe grab the stones and use them himself before anyone else could sacrifice themselves. But that was just Tony being Tony, even Tony knew that.

Tony was walking a strange line, oscillating between _‘the guy did his best’_ and _‘no, fuck him, he knew.’_ Only time would tell on which side he’d eventually situate himself.

It wasn’t until Tony happened to glance up from his work that he noticed it was the ass crack of dawn and he’d worked through the night. That meant one thing: coffee break.

He opted for the elevator, leaving the stairs for another day. He could’ve used the machine downstairs to make himself a cup—he’d made a point of buying a coffee maker for each floor—but there was always something to be said for a change of scenery. 

And possibly a shower. He was a little ripe.

He leaned against the countertop, brooding as his coffee brewed. Poetic. He grabbed up the mug and barely contained a moan of relief when he got that first mouthful. It hit the spot. That acrid, bitter taste rushed over his tongue, beating back the headache he felt coming on. And he would’ve been content to continue on fuming and sipping in silence if FRIDAY hadn’t alerted him to another presence entering the room.

“Boss, there’s an energy spike directly behind you, consistent with a wormhole or a—”

Tony cut her off. “I thought I told you not to just barge in here, Strange. I’m not in the mood for your holier than thou—” He turned around, coffee in hand, ready to deliver the most potent _‘get the fuck out’_ glare he could muster.

Instead, Tony blinked, caught off guard.

The portal wasn’t the brassy orange he’d grown used to over the last little while. It was blue. Bright blue.

And it definitely wasn’t the arrogant, ridiculously cheek-boned face he’d been expecting that stepped through.

There was no face at all. A stark white figure floated through, hovering a few inches over the ground. Humanoid, clearly, but entirely featureless from what Tony could tell. Like a blank canvas. Unnaturally thin, freakishly proportioned and… glowing?

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I don’t actually hand out autographs to people who break and enter,” Tony tried, mimicking the creature’s stillness. “After hours too. Or before, I guess. Come back at nine and we’ll see what we can do.”

The thing craned its head to the side slowly, considering him. And if that wasn’t just the creepiest fucking thing. Sent chills down Tony’s spine. Stephen’s astral revelation suddenly seemed like a normal Sunday occurrence.

That was when Tony noticed the disturbing silence of the room. He’d assumed he’d been the one who cut FRIDAY off, but now he had the sneaking suspicion that might’ve not been the case. 

“Uh, FRI?” He checked. There was no response. “Okay, play time’s over.” No more Mr. Nice Guy. He dropped the mug behind him, vaguely registering as it crashed to the floor instead of being placed neatly on the counter as he’d intended. He was more focused on leveling his rapidly constructing repulsors at the thing that had suddenly decided to _charge_ him, long spindly fingers that were probably gag-inducingly cold and clammy to the touch reaching out for him.

He got two shots off just as its form phased through the kitchen island that Tony apparently had been mistaken in thinking gave him a modicum of security and separation from the creature. Both shots landed, of that he was sure, but neither seemed to impact its pale figure, passing through it harmlessly and scorching the opposite walls of the room instead.

Tony was already leaping to the left, his suit forming around him, but not fast enough. He’d been counting on the shots to slow the thing down at the very least—buy him a precious second or two of time. No such luck. 

It lunged at Tony, wrapping those fingers around his wrist, fucking _disintegrating_ the nanobots as it went until it was pressed up right against his scarred flesh, grip tight enough to bruise. He barely had time to bring his other arm up, aiming to sock the thing in its ugly mug (because obviously his _fist_ was going to achieve what his repulsors had failed to), before the rest of his suit began falling apart. Tony’s eyes flashed over to one of his readouts and he almost did a double take. He was wrong. The suit wasn’t disintegrating, it was just deconstructing, but not in its regular deconstruction sequence. It was constructing in reverse. That wasn’t—

An excruciating pain burned through his wrist and that empty, plain, angular lack-of-a-face was the last thing Tony saw before a freight-train of a headache sent his ears ringing, his eyes stinging, his brain pounding in agony. He blacked out.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh as for updates, haha I’ll try I swear, but I’m not made of two week update material. Yet. So uh, bear with me, if you so choose. <3 <3
> 
> Many thanks to my darling, my beta, I love you.


End file.
